I think it is safe to say that in the future when historians look back at the year 2020, the only thing they will ever talk about when they mention this year is the great coronavirus epidemic, or COVID-19 to be exact, and how it single handedly put the whole world on hold. You know, now that I think of it the pandemic is kind of the reason why I even started writing this blog in the first place. It's honestly kind of amazing that even with all our modern technology mother nature will always find some way to be one step ahead of us.
Now I'm sure that this virus has affected everyone in some shape or form. Some people died, others tested positive, while millions of hardworking people got laid off from their jobs and are still getting laid off as we speak. It's honestly incredible how this entire pandemic all started because someone from Wuhan, China decided to eat an infected bat that they purchased from a wet street market (at least that's what we think happened). Next thing you know, everyone in the world is either quarantined in their homes or on a hospital bed.
It's honestly so crazy how fast a pandemic can turn everyone's life upside down. It certainly has for me that's for sure. Here's how the virus has affected my life. So to provide some backstory, I graduated from college in May of 2019 at Rutgers University (RU RAH RAH!!!). It was an emotional time for me, not just because of the memories I made in the last four years of undergrad, but also because I accepted a full time offer for a rotational program at a consulting firm that started in July and would have me living and working in India for nine months. That's right. India, the second most populated country in the world, subcontinent of Asia, and the origin of Hinduism. As someone who missed out on the chance to study abroad during college, this kind of international experience was the most exciting and frightening thing to ever happen to me. Especially since I was going to be gone for nine whole months. That's an entire school year, which is absolutely crazy to think about even to this day.
Once the program started, it was a bit of a cultural adjustment for sure but I quickly adapted and got the hang of things. I met some incredible faces from different places, and I travelled to some amazing locations not just in India but the rest of southeast Asia too. Even though I was mainly there to work and train during this time, I wasn't going to miss out on the once in a lifetime opportunity of being in southeast Asia for nine months during my early 20s. And boy did I take advantage of it. The countries and regions that I went to were absolutely breathtaking, and the people that I met along the way were some of my closest friends that I will always remember for years to come.
The Taj Mahal really is as magnificent in person as it is in the pictures.
Anyway, enough about the travel stories; back to talking about the pandemic. As far as I remember the news about this so called "coronavirus" started circulating the internet and the media around early to mid January. Like everyone else, I just brushed this whole thing off at the time. At first I simply thought that it was going to go away within a few weeks. After all, I was old enough to remember the days of swine flu and ebola and figured that sooner or later like those two diseases this virus would eventually be contained and forgotten.
Yet for some reason the media just kept reporting more and more cases, and these cases started popping up in different countries around the world, eventually reaching the United States. Even though India got its first confirmed case back in February, none of it really phased me at the time, as I was still doing the usual travelling and sightseeing that I've been doing since the beginning of the program. I remember being in Singapore around Valentine's day weekend and seeing all the public health notices and face masks being worn, as well as getting my temperature checked wherever I went and at the time they just seemed like recommendations and additional safety measures but nothing super serious.
Singapore is hands down one of the most beautiful places ever. Really glad I got to see it while I still could.
But then March came and all of a sudden shit just hit the fucking fan.
To say that is a complete understatement. Like shit REALLY hit the fan. The amount of everyday things that seemingly stopped overnight felt like night and day. Not just things at work in India but also what was happening back home too. I think the first wake up call for me was when I opened up my phone one morning before work and saw that the NBA suspended its season indefinitely. That was when I realized that this virus wasn't a joke, since a multi-billion dollar corporation decided that it was going to cease all operations in the best interests of its players and staff. You know shit is real when a corporation decides to put the health and safety of its employees first over the chance to make money. On top of that, every business around us started shutting down out of nowhere. The mall right by my office that I would grab food from everyday was closed, and all the nearby restaurants and small businesses were closed too, as well as the gym outside my apartment. The whole country was essentially on lockdown. And the effects of the virus weren't just exclusive to India. Whenever I checked up on how my friends back in New Jersey were doing, every business, school, and public gathering shut down by our governor's executive orders, as coronavirus was officially declared a public health emergency. On top of that, there was this whole "social distancing" thing that was put in place where everyone had to stand at least 6 feet apart and masks were to be worn at all times, and anyone who was travelling had to quarantine for at least 14 days. It felt like living in a dystopia straight out of a George Orwell novel.
To top it all off, our company issued a work from home order around the middle of March. And I can't speak on behalf of others, but I personally saw my level of motivation drop significantly once that happened. Like aside from a few video calls and emails here and there, work from home felt like the corporate equivalence of a snow day to me. Just doing absolutely nothing relevant to my job whatsoever. And it honestly felt great to be able to have all of this free time and to mess around with my fellow coworkers in my apartment. But one week later all those fun and games came to an abrupt end.
Our company scheduled a WebEx call with our entire program to discuss the details of our remote working situation. During this call, they gave us permission to fly back home and work remotely from our respective home states. Oh, and this call took place on the last day India was allowing commercial flights too. The entire phone call was very short, maybe about an hour long, but once they hung up things went from 0-100 in a matter of seconds.
Next thing you know, everybody just started packing all their stuff and booking tickets for the next flight home ASAP. Our program started out with about 60 people, and it literally cut in half overnight. I'm not even joking. We were down to about 25 people after the last Uber left our apartment. As someone who regretfully made the decision of staying that night, watching everybody leave like that was almost like coming home and seeing your house set on fire. It just felt like the world was crumbling in front of my eyes. I spent the last nine months in a foreign country where I didn't speak the native language, and being with everyone was like being in a social bubble, since they were essentially all I had during my time there, and now half of them decided to just...leave. I don't blame them but from my point of view so much was happening that I just didn't know how or what to feel. I don't remember going to sleep that night but what I do remember was the immense feeling of depression that I felt the morning after. Not just from seeing everyone leave but also not knowing when I was going to be able to go home. And that really sucked.
But despite all of this, I show still had to go on. Since I was almost near the end of my training period, this meant that our company was about to assign a client for me, as we were training to become future consultants. And this is huge for us because the clients we ended up working for determined what city we would move to once we returned to the US. Once I got my client, it was confirmed that I would be moving to the San Francisco bay area. I was super excited about this because one of my best friends that I met in the program was going to be assigned to the same client as me, and we decided to make the plan to move in together. On top of this, I had family members who were already living in that area too so I was going to be close with my family on top of living with my best friend. And I remember just how quickly the emotions turned around for me. Because not only was I excited to move out to the west coast, I was also finally looking forward to becoming a real adult by the time I went home.
Fast forward to about a month later, and we hear news that the US government is issuing emergency evacuation flights for those who are stuck in foreign countries and trying to come home. Even though there were limited seats available, at the time it felt like this was my last chance to go home and I did everything I could to get on one of these flights. And eventually I did around mid April. The journey home took about two whole days of nonstop travelling. That whole trip home was a journey in itself, but I will talk about that in more detail in a later blog post.
Anyways, once I finally come home I start my mandatory 14 days of quarantine in the comfort of my home as well as keeping in touch with the friends from the program, and even though things were a lot different from adjusting to the new normal, it also felt like not much has changed. Since I lived most of my life in the small conservative suburbs of New Jersey, it honestly felt like nothing changed at all when I came home. Like my town literally looked exactly the same as when I left. Which is really crazy to think considering how I was gone for nine whole months. I honestly thought I was gonna go through some kind of reverse culture shock coming home, but aside from the jet lag I basically picked up right where I left off. And everytime I think about my nine months abroad in India it always felt like waking up from a dream. Like despite everything I experienced during my time there, I would always just start my day as if I never left this entire time.
Despite all of this I kept working full time for about a month and a half. Things were going relatively slow due to the difference in time zones, but I am learning as much as I can and trying to understand as much as possible. But fast forward to late May and I wake up to a 1-on-1 phone call scheduled with my manager about "certain decisions being made" in our program. And it turns out that other people in my program had these calls with the managers too. It didn't take long for us to realize that they ultimately decided to lay us off. This kind of came as a shock because we all thought at the time we were safe since we thought our company already did its rounds of layoffs.
But turns out we were wrong.
Even though we didn't know how many people were getting laid off, we kept hearing the rumors and details in our group chat. These layoffs took place over the course of three days. I found out that I was being let go on the morning of day 2. After the third day it was revealed that 75% of us all got laid off. That's an astounding number even looking back now. Only about 16 people were retained out of the 60 that were onboarded. What an absolute shitshow. I remember opening up the group chat on my phone and seeing everyone's goodbye texts to each other after getting laid off, and just remembering those initial feelings of depression from the night everyone left and feeling them coming back again. Because even though we all left each other back in March, this was the real goodbye.
After coming home, I was really excited and looking forward to the idea of moving to California with one of my best friends that I met in the program. Now I am currently unemployed and searching for my next opportunity. All thanks to a damn virus. As I write this blog post, we are still under quarantine seven months later with no end in sight. But nonetheless I am remaining optimistic not only for my next career move but for the end of this pandemic. Because nothing lasts forever, no matter how long it may be. Despite the absolute shitshow of an ending during my time abroad, I still had the time of my life and I will always cherish those moments I spent travelling and all the friends I made. And if any of them are reading this, I just want to say thank you for the memories and until we meet again.
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